


zugzwang

by neverfadingrain



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Daemons, Gen, idc what you think of the interrogation scene that's what it was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9046634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfadingrain/pseuds/neverfadingrain
Summary: German chess term: for when you have to make a move, but regardless of what you do you will put yourself at a disadvantage.Or: Bodhi swears he is never going to answer the door in the middle of the night ever again.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladiesyouhate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladiesyouhate/gifts).



> happy birthday to kate! my dear friend, my shining star, my co-conspirator. all i'm capable of writing at the moment is daemon!fic, apparently? but i hope you like it.
> 
> this is unbeta'ed, written in about 4 hours and honestly, i have no idea what happened. is there more r1 daemon!fic to come? absolutely fucking yes. am i going to get it written in a timely fashion? probably not. as always, names and forms are in the end notes!

 

He should never have gotten out of bed this morning, Bodhi thinks dejectedly.

Or rather, he should never have answered the insistent knock on his door at three in the morning.

Because now he’s dragged through the desert outside Jedha City. There’s a burlap sack over his head, blotting out all chance of him seeing where he’s being taken, and his hands are flexcuffed together in front of him. He’s being tugged along roughly—Saw Gerrera’s Partisans don’t seem to care whether he trips and breaks an ankle along the way—and the frigid air cuts straight through his thin flight suit and leaches the warmth from his bones.

The only saving grace of the whole situation is that they’d left his Saani alone. Bodhi doesn’t know what he would’ve done if the Partisans had tried to take his dæmon from him.

Instead, they’d made sure that Bodhi could hold her in his hands. She’s just as restrained as he is, of course—the flexcuffs are positioned in such a way that he couldn’t let her go if he wanted to, tight and restrictive against the throbbing pulse in his wrist. The tips of his fingers had gone numb and tingly within minutes of them being snapped shut.

 _We’ve made a horrible mistake,_ he tells her, stumbling yet again.

Saani nips at his fingers with her sharp beak. She lays calm in his grasp, secure in the knowledge that Bodhi won’t let her fall, and the feel of her sleek feathers against his palms is reassuring. _Have faith,_ she says.

 _I had faith, and look where that’s gotten us_ , Bodhi says bitterly.

She doesn’t have a response to that, so they fall into a bitter silence. It’s broken only by the Partisans shouting to one another in Jedhese—Bodhi only remembers enough to pick up the occasional word, he hasn’t spoken his birth language since he was eight—and the scrape of stone sliding against stone. He’s shoved into what has to be one of the moon’s cave systems—the sandy ground under his feet gradually becomes smoothly worn stone, and Bodhi shivers all over again as he loses the sun’s heat on his back—and trips up a mild incline.

The Partisans haul him through a series of sharp twists and turns, voices so distorted by the stone that Bodhi gives up trying to understand them at all. He focuses, instead, on keeping his feet under him as they climb even deeper into the caves.

 _Do you still have the message?_ Saani whispers suddenly.

 _No_ , Bodhi says. They’d searched him as soon as his hands were bound, and found the holodisk stashed in his boot almost immediately. But as far as Bodhi can tell, the Partisans still have it. There’s still a chance to get the message to Saw Gerrera.

There’s still a chance for him to make things right.

He trips yet again, and is only saved from falling on his face by the harsh grips the Partisans have on his arms. Saani squawks in alarm when his grip tightens reflexively, and Bodhi mutters urgent apologies to her as he regains his balance.

He only realizes that his captors have stopped dragging him when there comes a disdainful snort from in front of him.

Bodhi’s shoved roughly to his knees. The sack is ripped from over his head, but no one makes a move to unlock the flexcuffs. All around him, sneering rebels are crowding into the room.

Directly in front of him, haloed in light in the center of the room, stands a being who looks more machine than human. His hair is wild, his skin darkly scarred and pockmarked, and most of his limbs have been replaced by prosthetics. There’s a half-wild reptavian dæmon with red scaled wings behind him, big enough to ride, that snarls at Bodhi.

“Saw Gerrera,” Bodhi says weakly. He can’t imagine who else it could be.

The freedom fighter bares his teeth at Bodhi. “You’re the pilot?”

He is suddenly struck by the dawning sense that he’s in over his head. Bodhi gulps and tries to focus on the racing heartbeat cupped in his hands, on anything except the terror cascading down his spine and freezing his organs one by one.

He really shouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning.

 

 

 

The knocking on his door is quiet, but insistent.

Bodhi is a light sleeper. Has been ever since he was taken to the Imperial Academy. He learned quickly that being able to sleep at the slightest opportunity was an invaluable skill, especially for a cargo pilot. Being able to fall asleep in the cramped corner of a hangar bay, or catch an hour in the pilot’s seat while the autopilot navigates them through hyperspace, is all that keeps him on his feet some days.

He’s also trained himself to wake up at the slightest disturbance.

For half a second, he thinks about ignoring the knocking. About pretending he never heard it, rolling over and going back to sleep. That’s what he does the rest of the time, isn’t it? Turning a blind eye to the types of cargo he transports, pretending he doesn’t see what the Stormtroopers do to people who step out of line, ignoring the signs of suffering and injustice hovering under his nose. He’s a decent enough pretender, nobody would have to know.

Bodhi answers the door.

When he sees who’s on the other side, he stares for a long moment. It’s Saani, leaving the tangled sheets of their bunk to see their visitor for herself, who brings him back to himself by biting Bodhi’s ear. _Well?_ she says with another sharp nip. _Aren’t you going to let them in?_

“Oh, right. S-sorry,” Bodhi stutters, stepping to the side so Galen Erso— _Galen Erso_ , of all people, Stars Above—can slip into Bodhi’s temporary quarters. The door slides shut behind them with a quiet snickt, and suddenly Bodhi can’t breathe. “Wha-what do you need, sir?”

The scientist is studying him with worn, hollowed out eyes. There’s something pensive about him tonight, like he’s warring with himself. His elegant cloudsnake dæmon coils about his shoulders, standing out starkly white against the blue of his engineering suit and hissing urgently in his ear.

“Bodhi,” Erso says slowly. Carefully, like he’s weighing every single word. “Bodhi, I need your help.”

He blinks. What could Galen Erso, one of the top scientists in the Empire, _director_ of the labs here on Eadu, possibly need his help with? Sure, they’ve talked every time Bodhi made a supply run for the base (somehow, over the years, he’d become Eadu’s designated supply pilot. He’d never thought to question it before, because there are many worse things he could be doing than supply runs to Eadu.) But Bodhi’s just a cargo pilot, he’s nothing special. Kriff, the only thing he _might_ be good for is teaching someone how to win at sabacc.

“Uh,” he says, after the silence stretches between them for entirely too long.

Erso smiles, gentle and benevolent. He strokes one hand down his dæmon’s spine to soothe her, digs the other hand deep in his suit pocket. “This is a very important mission I have, and you’re the only one I can trust.”

Bodhi stares at the scientist, baffled. “Sir…”

“I need you to deliver a message.”

And, well. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Bodhi delivers stuff all the time; it’s usually a fair bit bigger than a message, but he’s got his fair share of experience with delivering _people_ carrying messages. It can’t be that different.

He straightens up as best he can, keenly aware that he’s in nothing but a threadbare pair of Imperial-issued pajamas and his hair is a mess. “What’s the message?” he asks. On his shoulder, Saani gives a throaty croak and rustles her wings.

“It’s for an old friend of mine.” Erso takes a deep breath. He clenches his fists, once, twice. Then he holds out his hand, palm up. In it is sitting a tiny holodisk. “Have you ever heard of Saw Gerrera?”

The name rings a distant bell. Bodhi’s brow furrows as he struggles to remember where he’s heard it before, but all that comes to mind is a group of pirate insurgents fighting against the empire and that can’t _possibly_ be right.

 _Kriff,_ Saani whispers in his hear. _Kriffing hell, Bodhi, he has a message for the rebellion._

 _What? No he doesn’t,_ Bodhi says, somewhat nonsensically.

But his dæmon is stretching her ink-dark wings in the stale lighting of the bunk, eyeing Erso with sudden distrust. _Saw Gerrera leads a cell of rebel fighters. Remember all the pilots who got shot down on missions to Jedha?_

He does, suddenly. Bodhi’s read countless mission directives over the past few years that talked about the insurgents fighting to retake control of Jedha, warning the cargo pilots of the best ways to avoid having their ships shot out of the sky. He’s never been assigned one of those missions himself, of course.

Nobody’s allowed to fly missions to their homeplanet.

“Bodhi,” Erso says. “I know what you must be thinking right now. But I’ve come to you for a reason. I’ve _chosen you_ for a reason. I know you feel the same way as I do about the Empire. You’re the only one I can trust.”

Oh god, it’s a trap, Bodhi realizes. His flight commanders have figured out that he’s less than enthusiastic about serving the Empire, and they’ve set up a trap to catch him in his disloyalty. They’re going to throw him out an airlock, or strand him on a water planet, or—

Erso takes a step forward, closing the space between them.

“The Empire has built a weapon. A planet-killer. It’s nearly complete. When it is…” He trails off, takes a deep breath, then continues. “When it is, no one in the galaxy will stand a chance,” he says, clasping Bodhi’s hand between his own. Bodhi can feel the holodisk, so cold against his skin it feels like it’s burning.

The look on Erso’s face is deadly serious.

 _By the stars_ , Bodhi murmurs to Saani. _He’s not kidding_.

Erso withdraws his hands slowly, making sure Bodhi has a grip on the holodisk. “I know you feel the same. The Empire, what it’s doing—what _we’re_ doing—it’s wrong. Someone has to make them stop, before it’s too late.” He sighs, heavily, and when he meets Bodhi’s eyes again the scientist suddenly appears twice his age. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. None I regret more so than helping them. This will begin to set things right.”

“But why me?” Bodhi asks desperately, staring down at the disk glinting in his palm. Saani shuffles down his arm, wings held carefully aloft for balance, to examine it closer.

Erso steps back again, stroking his dæmon, studying Bodhi with desperate eyes. “Because you’re the perfect messenger. Pilots and mechanics disappear all the time. No one will be looking for you until it’s too late. And because you’re the only one who can get off of this base without raising ten different alarms.”

 _Ask him how he knows we won’t just turn this in to our commander_ , Saani tells him.

Bodhi nervously repeats the question.

The scientist just smiles at him, that same benevolent, _knowing_ smile he’d worn before. “You are a good man, Bodhi Rook. And if you’re brave enough, you can save so many people. You can start to make amends.”

Saani swears under her breath, low and vicious. Bodhi feels Erso’s words hit him like a punch to the gut.

He takes a deep breath. It tastes like hope, oddly enough. And it’s enough to have him straightening his shoulders with determination.

“What do I have to do?”

 

 

 

After Gerrera’s finished with him, a couple low ranking Partisans dump Bodhi in a cell. They’re not particularly gentle about it, and leave him crumpled up in a heap on the stone floor. On their way out, one of them aims a pointed kick at Bodhi’s side.

He’s too dazed to move out of the way, and the insurgent’s foot connects in a bright starburst of pain.

Bodhi groans.

They laugh as they close the cell behind them.

Bodhi closes his eyes. The ground feels like it’s spinning beneath him—or maybe it’s just his brain, turned into useless mush by that Bor Gullet creature—and it’s making him nauseous. He can feel his Saani, huddled in the crook between his neck and shoulder, cooing softly as she tries to reassure them both.

He drifts.

An indefinable amount of time later, Bodhi vomits pathetically all over the stone floor of his cell. He hasn’t eaten in Force knows how long, at least a day, so it’s mostly bile that he’s choking up. Afterwards, impossibly, the ground seems even _more_ unstable under him. He rolls over, away from the puddle of bile, and thinks now would be a good time to pass out.

Saani jumps around the cell in short little hops—looking for weaknesses, Bodhi thinks, looking for ways to escape—before she settles at the back of his head. After a moment, he feels a gentle tugging on his hair.

 _Wha-what’re you d’ng?_ he mumbles, the words sticking in his mouth. There’s blood on his tongue, too, making everything thick and sticky.

His dæmon tucks herself in closer to his skull, keeping up her tender ministrations. Saani combs through his long hair carefully, methodical and careful never to exacerbate his throbbing head. She starts humming, something calming and, unexpectedly, familiar.

It takes Bodhi a very long moment to realize that it’s a lullaby his mom used to sing.

He loses time again. Loses track of his aching body, feels like he’ll float right off of the stone and out to the stars if given enough time. Saani is watching over him, Bodhi has enough capacity to think hazily, Saani won’t let anything too terrible happen to him.

At some point, the Partisans come back. They’re loud, shouting furiously to each other, and there’s a clattering noise like supplies being dropped on a table. Weapons, maybe? And the soft whump of flesh against stone, in the cell next to his, right before another door _whooshes_ shut.

Bodhi has just enough presence of mind to draw himself into a ball, hunching in the corner of his cell and wrapping himself protectively around his dæmon.

But the Partisans don’t pay him any mind.

It’s as if, now that Gerrera’s established the veracity of his claims, they have no more use for him.

The prisoners in the next cell are talking amongst themselves. Loud voices—they don’t seem to care about being overheard—and annoyed.

“An Imperial pilot,” someone says, from directly on the other side of the metal grating. Hands grab at Bodhi’s uniform, shaking him roughly from side to side. Still trying to fight off the mental fog from his interrogation, Bodhi has no energy left to defend himself. All he can do is curl protectively around his Saani, cover her with his body and hope.

“Wait, wait!” a different voice shouts. Milder, with an accent that softens all his words. “Leave him be!”

Ever so slowly, the hands release him.

Bodhi has no energy left to move, and stays where the hands had put him. He breathes—it feels like all he can do, honestly, to just breathe—and hopes that the other prisoners will just leave him be.

“Are you the pilot? The defector, the one who brought the message? Are you the pilot?” the second voice asks him urgently. It sounds like the man is on the other side of the bars, close enough to reach through and touch him if he wanted. He doesn’t.

Bodhi decides he likes the second voice.

 _How do they know about us?_ Saani asks, wriggling just enough to work her way out of Bodhi’s lax hold. She flutters upwards, perching on his hunched knees, cocking her sleek head at the other cell.

He doesn’t want to open his eyes. Doesn’t want to see whatever’s waiting on the other side—doesn’t want to see the prisoners who might still want to kill him. Doesn’t want to risk vomiting again, doesn’t want to come out of the fog. Everything is nicely numb, right now. Leaving the fog will hurt, Bodhi thinks.

He’s so tired of hurting.

But. “Galen Erso,” the second voice says carefully. “Did you bring the message? About the weapon?”

 _What are you doing?_ Saani shrieks abruptly. _Get away from us!_ Her sturdy black wings beat at the air around Bodhi, reassuring as a heartbeat, before her comforting weight is suddenly gone. He panics, frantic at the thought that he’s lost her.

When he opens his eyes, Saani is on the ground in front of him. Her feathers are mantled, her wings extended protectively, and she’s facing off against a fox dæmon only a little bigger than herself. “I-I-I’m the pilot,” Bodhi gasps, awareness returning. Every muscle in his body aches, it feels like. Muscles he rarely uses; muscles he didn’t even know he had.

“Roshell!”

Bodhi follows the direction of the second voice with his eyes, and is startled to realize that the man on the other side of the grating is about his own age. He’s also unfairly…pretty, is the word that comes to mind, with liquid looking eyes and soft brown hair. He smiles at Bodhi, and reaches through the bars.

It’s not, as Bodhi initially thinks, to grab him again. Rather, the man scruffs his fox dæmon like a misbehaving kitten and tugs her back through the grating, ignoring her vicious hissing all the while.

Saani keeps up the croaking complaint until the fox is safely back in the other cell.

“Sorry about her,” the man says with an apologetic grimace. “It’s just. We’ve come a very long way to find you.”

“Me?” Bodhi murmurs, startled.

He’s no one important. No one has ever traveled a long distance just for him before. The idea makes his head start to swim again, so Bodhi pushes it away.

The man hums softly, to draw Bodhi’s attention back to him. When he catches Bodhi’s gaze, there’s a familiar sort of darkness swirling in the depths of his eyes. “Please. It’s important. Where can I find Galen Erso?”

**Author's Note:**

> Bodhi--Saani (brilliant, radiant) a raven. ravens are originally native to Dathomir but have spread all across the galaxy and are common on many worlds. ravens are messengers, symbols of good luck and innate curiosity, and commonly regarded as harbingers of powerful secrets.  
> Saw Gerrera--Kumani (destiny) ruping. a reptavian native to Onderon with a pointed head and red scaled wings. used by the native people as mounts and war beasts.  
> Galen Erso--Kaia (pure) cloudsnake. a sleek breed of snake with a smooth carapace.  
> Cassian Andor--Roshell (little rock) vjun fox. a black fox native to Vjun. foxes are associated with cunning, strategy, adaptability, wisdom and determination.


End file.
